


There Is No One

by JolieFolie



Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковски | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst and Porn, Disturbing Themes, Drug-Induced Sex, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Evil Plans, F/M, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Poisoning, Potions, Pre-Canon, Psychosis, reference to murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 04:46:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5078320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JolieFolie/pseuds/JolieFolie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rothbart drugs and kidnaps Odette with the intention of performing an experiment on her -- but he isn't as in control as he planned.<br/>(Possible explanation of how Odette first came to be in Rothbart's possession).<br/>Rated E with a rape/non-con warning, just to be safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is No One

She would be practice.

She was a collection of circles on the floor of the forest. Circles for the prominent but low-set cheekbones, circles for the curls of her warm blonde hair, circles for the dip in the small of her back and her gently flaring hips. He kneeled in front of her and noted his own bony, triangular knees. He reached out to touch her hair but stopped when he realized his hand was trembling.

 _You look delicious,_ Rothbart thought.

Her eyes fluttered half-way open. There were circles under those too; she must be exhausted. A tiny moan came from somewhere.

Had she heard him? Was she a mind-reader, or had he spoken aloud? In case she was listening, he spoke again. “You look beautiful.” He felt himself blush; he’d never said that to anyone before. He wasn’t even sure if he meant it – he just wanted to say something that would make her like him. Experience had taught him that the first thing to come out of his mouth, usually, only frightened people.

She was about his size; he would never be able to pick her up. And she seemed too good to drag.

_An odd conclusion. What made her good?_

He put a hand on her shoulder. It didn’t feel like his hand. “Come,” someone said. It was him, trying to sound persuasive. And failing at it. He had yet to find a recipe for a silver-tongue draught. And God only knew, he’d been searching since he was a child.

She was stirring. He froze. When should he take his hand off her shoulder? Now?

She coughed and rolled part-way onto her face. A horrible retching noise. And then –

He backed away so she wouldn’t vomit on him. In the back of his mind, he began taking notes: approximately four ounces of yellow vomit tinged with purple – the berries. Barely digested.

Fuck, the poison wouldn’t reach its peak now. He’d need to refine the recipe so it would stick in the gut. Or… perhaps she was just sensitive. Usually, he brewed his poisons so strong, there was no question of their lethality. But then, up until now he had only poisoned men – or at least males who committed crimes so heinous, they deserved to be treated like grown men…

But that was ages ago; he’d been a child himself.

As he pulled himself back to the present, he pulled her away from the vomit. He took off his cape and laid it down beside her, and then rolled her onto it.

He would have to drag her. He felt his face heat up. He’d never given a sincere apology in his life, and yet…

* * *

All his best potions came from winged creatures. It was envy that drove him to kill them, initially, back when he was ignorant. And it was envy that drove him to emulate them, now. At the moment, he had to drink a potion whenever he wanted to turn into an owl – so that he could finally, _finally_ , physically move as fast as his brain worked.

One day, he would figure out how to transform without the help of a draught.

Most of the poison had worn off by now. He had sat her up so her back was against the wall. He hadn’t bound her hands, hadn’t restrained her in any way; the human body was the ultimate prison.

He realized only too late that he should’ve gotten her some water for when she woke up. Wait –

What difference would water make? He wasn’t supposed to care if she lived or died. He was supposed to be testing his new swan potion, which at the moment was so chemically unstable that it had killed all the mice he’d gotten his talons on. He dare not test it on himself. Besides, he didn’t want to _be_ a swan – he just wanted to be surrounded by them. There was something so peaceful, so reassuring, about their gently curved shapes.

He kneeled beside her. The woman was dressed plainly but elaborately – long-sleeved dress, corset, cape, gloves. Shoes. Bizarre. He’d never understood human clothes. On most days, he wore what others might deem to be a long skirt, and then a shawl and a cape in addition to that for when he was out of doors.

He wanted to remove her clothing; he could almost smell that awful scent of humans’ consent to their own bondage. Her pointed-toe shoes especially. How barbaric to confine something meant to aid one’s movement.

No matter. It was time to administer the draught. To see if she would die or turn into a swan. He questioned why he didn’t feel more excited. It had taken weeks to brew this particular version of the draught.

He held the vial. Something made his other hand pluck a small leaf from her hair. Odd of him. But he liked to keep things tidy. That would do to explain his behaviour.

Her eyes opened.

This small movement startled him. He moved his hand to the bottom of her neck, not to choke her, but to steady her.

Her eyes snapped to look at him. Even in the dim light of his lair, he could tell they were a brilliant, luminous green.

He froze.

Any second now, she’d bolt for the exit. He had to prepare himself. He could feel his pulse bounding in his neck. He had to make her drink, before she wasn’t under his control anymore.

“You’re going to kill me.”

He nearly dropped the vial, he was so startled by her voice. Raspy from dehydration, but still voluptuous in quality. Was she asking a question? He didn’t know how to answer. Was it possible she had the power to see the future, and knew that his swan potion wouldn’t work?

_No, I have to test this scientifically._

He racked his brain, trying to weigh the evidence he had, trying to supply her with a definitive answer. “Maybe,” he said, frustrated with how many unknown variables there were. He hated not knowing, hated being out of control.

She must be planning to steal the vial from him. She probably thought it was poison, a logical conclusion – it damned well wasn’t an iron supplement. She looked stronger than him, despite her obvious exhaustion. He could reach for one of his owl potions, transform himself so he could catch up with her if she ran away. But then she could still alert the authorities as to the whereabouts of his lair. He’d have to start all over again somewhere else… And all his supplies were here.

Damn her.

Now that she was awake, how would he persuade her to drink? To help him in his research required her to be selfless, something he had yet to see a human do.

But she had resisted the poison. Maybe she was an outlier in other ways as well? “I need your help.” Perhaps he could appeal to delusions of altruism. He had yet to meet a human who didn’t adhere to religion in some way, who wasn’t a “good God-fearing citizen” driven to prove oneself.

Rothbart could never bring himself to fear such an indifferent entity. Instead, he feared humans, the only creatures capable of true evil.

He went to raise the vial, but –

His hand wouldn’t move.

He tore his gaze away from her. Fine, then he would use his other hand. He removed the hand from her throat so he could –

She leaned forward, collapsing, as if his hand had been supporting her. She was staring at his – at his mouth? But why?

He was wasting time. She couldn’t drink if she was leaning forward. He put his hand against her cheek, coaxing her to lift her head.

She tilted her head towards his palm. The tips of his fingers slid into her hair, which was just as warm and soft as it looked. Her eyes drifted shut.

She wasn’t displaying the expected signs of sympathetic nervous system arousal, given her situation and earlier evidence of mental awareness. He started to panic.

He had never been charismatic – there was no way his few words had persuaded her to help him. If she was truly eager to drink the potion, she would take the vial and administer the potion herself. And if she didn’t want it, she would attempt escape. He felt his frustration with this ambiguity meld with a twinge of helplessness. What was she _doing_?

Rothbart always took great care to clean his hands before and after working with his potions – the smallest things could produce grand effects via contamination, something the senseless doctors of his time had yet to realize. So his immaculate hand was more than capable of feeling the smooth skin of the woman’s face, the shell of her ear, and one of the cheekbones he had admired – no, _observed –_ earlier.

He tore his hand away. She was sitting upright now, there was no rational reason to keep touching her.

There was a tiny whimper and then –

She fell forward, this time her mouth against his shoulder. Had she drugged herself while he wasn’t looking? No, her pupillary action had been regular, symmetrical bilaterally. Even if they were somewhat dilated. Most likely due to the dim lighting. There were other causes of pupil dilation, but…

He jerked back, burned. He didn’t like this. He wanted to push her away, but that would require touching her skin.

Her hands floated up like ghosts. She slowly sat back up, her eyes still closed. He furrowed his brows, confused. He had to say something to regain control, to –

She collapsed onto his face, pressing her mouth against his. Rothbart’s eyes stayed open, unblinking, as his mind whirled, trying to calculate – trying… to – no, wait –

His back hit the floor. The woman was indeed stronger than him – she had pushed him down and now she was licking the inside of his mouth.

He tasted bile and forest berries. The half-life of the poison. Shit.

He reached for her midsection and gripped her so tightly that his hands slid from her hips up to her narrow waist, the fabric of her dress bunching up in his hands. He needed to push her off, but he couldn’t get a firm grip on her.

She pressed down on his mouth even harder, choking him with her tongue, and reached her hands between his legs.

The thing Rothbart valued most about his human body were his thumbs; the other appendages he had neglected. It wasn’t until she wrapped her hand around the most neglected appendage of them all that he realized how much blood had drained from his head – his brain. What he needed urgently to employ.

She stroked him over his clothes, at first, and then bunched up the fabric so she could reach underneath. There was a moment when her hand left his erection where he heard a moan, a deeper one this time, from within his own body –

She released his mouth, only to bite his lip. He gasped in pain but the sensation swirled with the pressure she applied to his erection with her own groin.

He was completely out of his element. His instincts wanted to let him drown in her vicious behaviour. But this was a weakness inherent in his human body. He was better than this. He reached his hand out, feeling for the vial that he’d dropped.

She grasped his hands and slammed them against her thighs, forcing them underneath her dress. His fingertips trailed upwards, disappearing like bees between the petals of a flower, until he realized there was nothing but her bare skin beneath her dress.

She was straddling him, gliding over him with sweet pressure, coating him with slick heat but keeping his erection out of her own body. He wanted to note all of this in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t think, he was losing… he was losing it…

He didn’t want to swallow the taste of her bile and poison, but she wouldn’t remove her mouth from his. Even if he didn’t swallow, the poison could still enter his bloodstream via the membranes in his mouth. He had no way of measuring how much poison was still in her mouth. This was not the experiment he had planned. There were too many unknowns. Everything was wrong.

The vial lay forgotten, somewhere. He didn’t have the capacity to care. He felt an incredible frustration – he needed – ugh, why wasn’t she --?

He thrust his pelvis upwards, trying to pierce her. His body was succumbing to her.

Her tongue swirled around his. She evaded his thrust, keeping above him, causing him to half-growl, half-groan in frustration. He lifted his head, needing to go deeper. He pushed his tongue into her mouth like she had, trying to match her force.

She moaned and he almost swore he heard a laugh in the back of her throat. He was playing into her plan – _her_ plan, even though he couldn’t figure out which parts she’d planned, it was just an assumption at this point, there wasn’t any evidence to –

She gripped his erection and sat on – _fuck_ , barely the tip. She was so wet and soft –

And then she removed herself. Her mouth too. She was staring down at him, her face unreadable.

He thrust upward again. The angle was perfect. But she evaded him, held him down.

His eyes burned into hers. He hated her. He would have her, he needed her.

And then he felt a wave of helplessness wash over him. He felt like crying. He leaned his head back, and then –

She sat on the tip of his erection again. He was so sensitive; he felt a drop of her arousal drip down his length.

He heard himself groan loudly, adrenaline shooting through him. He pushed her to the side, acting swiftly enough to get her on her back so he could lay above her. He groaned again, feeling his hard thighs rub between her deliciously soft ones, and then he glared at her, trying to squeeze a drop of fear from her gaze.

But her gaze was impenetrable. So he thrust into her, penetrating her body.

It was glorious. The sheer feeling of success made him dizzy. Or was that the poison entering his bloodstream? He felt deliriously powerful, but he couldn’t let himself orgasm, couldn’t give in that much. But – _ugh…_!

He squeezed his eyes shut. Some other force was making his pelvis snap against hers, quickening, deepening, until he couldn’t catch his breath. Didn’t care about the poison. Nothing. He could have died in that instant and he wouldn’t have known.

He could hear her moaning, as if from a distance. More fluid gushed out around his erection. If she hadn’t been tighter than anything he’d ever felt before, there wouldn’t have been enough friction to make him feel this way.

He didn’t feel safe enough to orgasm. The circumstances were too unstable. This came about not from his own doing, but by some malevolent force bent on destroying him.

He forced himself to stop thrusting. He groaned, his face contorting. The pain…

He had to pull out, before –

She thrust her hips upward, consuming him again. His eyes stung; he cried out, disintegrating. A hollow voice came from within him: “ _No_.”

As he emptied himself, helpless, he could only focus on the hot tears streaming down his face.

His impulse was to collapse on top of her. He had to fight it. On his hands and knees, he tried to stand up.

Dizzy, he fell over, nearly cracking his head open against the wall.

“Don’t leave me.”

The voice wasn’t his own. He looked over at the source, his brows knitted as he tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his head.

He wanted to shake her, wanted to hold her. He had to sit down – the room was spinning. She had poisoned him. And yet – how come she wasn’t exhibiting signs of vertigo? The poison had been in her mouth far longer than it had been in his.

She had her own brand of sorcery. This intrigued him. Compelled to her, he sat down beside her and nearly gasped when she threw her arms around him.

Perhaps he hadn’t been poisoned. He’d have to wait to see. His mental capabilities were slowly coming back to him. It was like climbing up a staircase underwater…

Like in the ridiculous tale of Noah’s ark, every phenomenon had to be matched with a rationale. Every question had an answer. That’s how it was supposed to work.

His gaze landed on the vial, still intact (phew – to think of all those weeks, wasted…!), laying halfway across the room. He would have to save this for later. For another woman.

But this creature…

He needed to study.


End file.
